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FOR  THE  COLORED  PEOPLE. 


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Rbv.  R.  S.  Storrs,  D.D. 


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:;v: 


FOR  THE  COLORED  PEOPLE; 


A DISCOURSE 


DELIVERED  IN  THE 

Church  of  the  Pilgrims,  Brooklyn,  N.  Y. 

IN  BEHALF  OF 


The  American  Missionary  Association, 

BY 


Rhv.  r.  s.  storrs,  d.d. 


NEW  YORK: 

HOI/r  HROTHEKS.  Printers,  17-27  Vandewater  St, 
1800. 


HIS  Discourse  was  recently  preached  by  Dr.  Storrs  in  his  own 


pulpit,  in  presenting  the  claims  of  the  American  Missionary 
Association  for  the  annual  collection  in  its  behalf  in  the  Church  of 
the  Pilgrims.  The  Discourse  was  reported,  and  printed  in  one  of  the 
daily  papers  of  this  city,  and  in  this  form  it  fell  under  the  eye 
of  a benevolent  gentleman  in  Connecticut,  deeply  interested  in 
the  Christian  education  of  the  colored  people,  who  was  so  im- 
pressed with  the  great  value  of  the  address  that  he  has  furnished 
the  means  to  print  a large  edition  for  general  circulation.  The 
Association  publishes  it  most  gladly,  as  an  eminently  wise  and 
timely  utterance  on  one  of  America’s  great  problems. 


DISCOURSE. 


Psalm  xxii,  ^7,  28. — All  the  ends  of  the  world 
shall  renmnber,  and  tur7i  unto  the  Lord ; and  all  the 
kindreds  of  the  natio7is  shall  worship  before  Thee.  For 
the  ki7igdo77i  is  the  Lord's  ; a7id  He  is  the  Gove7'7ior  a77iong 
the  7iatio7is." 

I do  not  know  that  there  is  any  word  in  the  ancient 
Scripture  which,  it  seems  tome,  must  have  been  more  sur- 
prising, almost  bewildering,  to  the  minds  of  those  to 
whom  it  was  addressed,  than  this  word  must  have  been. 
“The  kingdom  is  the  Lord’s,  and  He  is  the  Governor 
among  the  nations ; therefore,  the  ends  of  the  earth  shall 
remember  and  turn  unto  Him.”  The  Israelite  mio^ht 
easily  and  properly  feel  that  his  own  nation  was  sheltered 
by  the  providence  of  God,  as  it  had  been  built  up  by  His 
counsel  and  power  ; and  that  He  was  the  God  of  that 
people,  and  the  Governor  in  the  midst  of  it.  But  how 
with  the  Assyrian  kingdom,  not  recognizing  Jehovah  at 
all : with  the  helmeted  figure  on  winged  globe,  and  the 
terrific  winged  human  bull  as  the  symbol  of  brutal 
though  intelligent  swiftness,  fierceness  and  power,  giving 
the  clearest  impressions  of  God  ? How  with  the  Egyptian 
kingdom,  a nation  out  of  which  Israel  had  been  brought. 


4 


and  which  reared  its  majestic  and  undecaying  monoliths 
as  its  supreme  tribute  to  the  gods,  and  graved  its  start- 
ling hieroglyphics  upon  them  ? How  with  the  Macedon- 
ian kingdom  ? or  with  the  Roman  afterwards — the  Roman, 
which  at  last  conquered  the  Jewish  nation,  which  pos- 
sessed its  land,  and  which  recognized  no  Jehovah  but  the 
thundering  Jove  who  had  wrapped  the  city  in  whirlwinds, 
and  smitten  with  lightning  the  bronze  wolf  in  the  capitol? 
How  could  it  be  said  that  God  was  the  Governor  among 
these  nations,  and  that  by  reason  of  that  fact  the  whole 
world  at  last  should  be  brought  to  turn  to  Him?  It 
must  have  been  an  astonishing  statement : not  improb- 
ably regarded,  I think,  by  those  who  heard  it  as  the  sug- 
gestion of  poetic  inspiration  — an  inspiration  of  holy  and 
devout  fancy,  but  hardly,  perhaps,  the  assertion  of  a su- 
preme truth  of  reason  and  of  history. 

Yet  there  is  no  other  affirmative  word  of  the  Scripture 
which  has  been  more  emphatically  illustrated  in  the  prog- 
ress of  history  from  the  time  it  was  spoken  until  now. 
That  Roman  Empire  which  had  swept  out  across  the 
civilized  world,  and  had  finally  embraced  under  its  domi- 
nation immense  tracts  of  territory  inhabited  only  by  bar- 
barous peoples,  which  had  conquered  Palestine  and  set 
up  its  standards  in  the  Castle  of  Antonia,  was  after  all 
sent,  as  we  now  see,  in  the  providence  of  God,  that  an 
open  way  might  be  offered  to  the  messengers  of  the  Gos- 
pel ; that  commerce  might  be  expanded  ; and  that  wher- 
ever the  Roman  law  extended,  and  wherever  the  Roman 
officers  were  found,  there  the  word  and  the  messengers 


of  the  meek  Master  whom  Pilate  had  crucified  might 
equally  have  place,  and  be  equally  at  home.  Then,  when 
the  time  came,  that  was  broken  up,  to  form  the  separate 
nations  which  have  since  possessed,  occupied,  and  in  many 
respects  certainly  glorified,  the  continent  over  which  its 
sway  extended.  It  never  was  more  clear  than  it  is  to- 
day that  every  nation  has  been,  and  is,  under  the  govern- 
ment of  God  ; and  that  every  nation  has  a work  to  do 
for  Him  in  carrying  forward  His  plans  on  earth,  and  ex- 
tending His  kingdom  of  righteousness  and  peace. 

This  is  all  the  more  evident  as  nations  become  more 
compactly  organized,  and  show  themselves  more  conspic- 
uously the  chief  persons  in  modern  history.  In  the 
earlier  time  individuals  had  a vast,  even  sometimes  a cos- 
mical,  range  of  influence.  Now',  they  have  not.  Bernard, 
in  the  twelfth  century,  spoke  to  all  Western  Christendom. 
It  made  no  difference  w'hether  he  were  of  French  or  Ger- 
man, it  w’ould  not  if  he  had  been  of  British,  extraction. 
His  word  was  heard  throughout  Christendom.  Luther 
afterward  spoke  to  the  world,  the  monk  of  Wittemberg 
shaking  the  continent,  and  sending  the  influence  of  his 
truth  further  than  he  himself  imagined,  or  ever  knew  wfliile 
he  lingered  on  earth.  To  a certain  extent  the  same 
thing  was  true  of  the  Wesleys,  even,  in  their  later  day ; 
they  affected  not  England  only,  but  this  continentas  well, 
and  their  influence  was  as  wdde  as  the  English  language. 
But  now  individuals  are  only  important  to  the  w^orld  at 
large  as  connected  with  nations.  They  do  not  speak  di- 
rectly to  mankind,  but  to  their  ow'n  peoples,  and  through 


6 


those  peoples  exert  their  influence  upon  the  world.  This 
is  true  of  the  foremost  statesmen  of  our  time.  It  was  true 
of  Cavour,  in  Italy — a man  of  immense  political  sagacity 
and  foresight,  of  the  rarest  culture  and  tact  in  statesman- 
ship, and  of  unsurpassed  power  both  in  the  apprehension  of 
political  truth  and  in  the  statement  of  it.  It  is  true,  as 
well,  of  Castelar,  in  Spain,  at  this  hour.  We  know  little 
of  him,  except  as  he  is  connected  with  the  progress  of 
liberal  ideas  and  administration  in  his  own  nation.  The 
same  is  true,  even,  of  Bismarck  : largely,  through  Ger- 
many, but  not  directly,  affecting  us.  And  the  same  is  true 
as  well  of  Gladstone,  in  England;  whose  words  we  read 
always  with  interest  and  usually  with  admiration,  but 
whose  influence  is  exerted  upon  history  through  the  gov- 
ernment of  which  he  has  been  so  long  a distinguished  and 
a vastly  useful  member  and  minister. 

And  this  is  to  be  true  in  time  to  come : that  individ- 
uals will  lose  prominence,  and  lose  in  comparative  range 
of  power,  except  as  their  influence  is  connected  with  the 
development  and  education  of  the  nations  to  which  they 
respectively  belong.  The  nations  themselves  are  more 
and  more,  as  I have  said,  coming  to  the  front  as  the  great 
Persons,  by  whom  the  future  is  to  be  moulded,  by  whom 
God  is  to  be  glorified  in  the  final  and  universal  establish- 
ment of  His  kingdom  on  the  earth.  Every  nation  has  its 
work  to  do  for  this  end;  and  every  nation  will  be  strong, 
and  widely  influential,  precisely  in  proportion  as  it  does 
this  work  with  keener  zeal  and  a higher  consecration. 

So  our  own  nation  has  its  work  to  do,  within  itself, 


and  abroad,  beyond  itself,  in  testifying  to  the  truth  of 
God,  and  manifesting  His  love  and  light  to  the  peoples  of 
the  world.  But  first,  within  itself ; and  this  work,  an  im- 
mense work,  has  been  in  part  accomplished,  while  in 
large  part  it  yet  remains  to  be  performed. 

One  element  in  it,  and  the  first  one  which  I would 
now  refer  to,  was  the  establishment  of  itself  as  a separate 
nation  on  the  earth  ; and  that  was  in  some  respects  the 
most  difficult  and  perilous  part  of  the  entire  work  which 
has  been  given  to  it  to  do.  It  seemed  incredible  at  the 
time — we  do  not  realize  the  apparent  impossibility  of  the 
achievement — that  a small  people,  numbering  in  all  per- 
haps three  millions,  scattered  along  the  narrow  strip  bor- 
dering upon  the  Atlantic  coast,  with  every  harbor  acces- 
sible to  foreign  ships,  constantly  liable  to  be  overrun  at 
many  points  by  foreign  troops,  should  assert  its  inde- 
pendence, and  establish  its  independence,  against  the 
mightiest  naval  power,  and  one  of  the  mightiest  military 
powers,  then  on  the  face  of  the  earth: — a power  which 
fought  with  relentless  determination  to  conquer  what  had 
seemed  at  first  a mere  local  insurrection.  It  looked  al- 
most like  a hen  fighting  a horse.  It  seemed  like  a boy 
with  a blow-gun,  or  a sling,  meeting  the  front  of  arrayed 
cannon,  for  this  small  people,  scattered  so  remotely  over 
this  scanty  strip  of  territory,  without  intimate  alliances 
between  the  separated  parts  of  it,  to  face,  and  finally 
to  conquer  in  effect,  this  mighty  nation.  Yet  it  was  ac- 
complished, as  we  know,  largely  through  the  wisdom,  the 
military  sagacity,  the  undaunted  fortitude  and  the  abso- 


8 


lute  self-possession,  of  Washington,  on  whom  the  whole 
nation  rested  at  different  critical  and  threatening  times, 
and  without  whom,  apparently,  that  great  struggle  could 
not  have  been  successful.  He  seems  as  distinctly  a provi- 
dential man  as  St.  Paul  had  been  in  his  day,  or  Luther  in 
his  day. 

Then  came  the  second  work  : that  of  providing  a new 
Government  for  the  new  people  now  struggling  toward 
nationhood — a Government  from  which  all  elements  of 
monarchical  or  aristocratical  prerogative  and  power  should 
be  excluded  ; which  should  be  absolutely  popular,  and  yet 
permanent ; which  should  be  radically  and  essentially 
democratic,  while  yet  so  conservative  in  the  frame  of  its 
constitution,  in  the  organic  law,  that  there  should  be  the 
assurance  in  the  minds  of  those  who  founded  the  govern- 
ment of  its  long  continuance,  of  its  practical  perpetuity 
on  earth.  And  that  work  was  accomplished,  in  connec- 
tion with  the  wisdom,  the  foresight  and  the  fidelity  of 
those  who  at  that  time  were  the  leaders  in  our  national 
councils;  a work,  looking  back  to  which,  in  the  detail  of 
its  history,  we  see  that  at  different  points  it  came  near  ab- 
solute wreck,  while  yet  it  finally  emerged,  under  the 
kindly  guidance  and  government  of  the  providence  of 
God,  into  wonderful  completeness — a completeness  which 
astonished  even  those  who  had  wrought  it,  and  which  re- 
mained after  they  had  gone. 

Then  came  the  work  of  interpreting  this  organic  law, 
and  framing  a system  of  related  though  subordinate  laws 
in  harmony  with  it : a work  indispensable  to  the  welfare 


9 


of  the  nation.  That  was  accomplished  by  the  eminent 
jurists,  and  the  eminent  legislators,  who  at  that  time  were 
principal  in  our  public  councils  and  on  the  Bench. 

And  then  came  the  work  of  assimilating,  as  far  as  pos- 
sible, the  distributed  peoples  already  extending  over  large 
spaces  of  the  continent,  and  bringing  them  into  moral  har- 
mony and  alliance  with  each  other.  That  was  the  work, 
largely,  of  the  Home  Missionary  movement,  in  our  own 
communion  and  in  other  communions,  and  of  the  enter- 
prise for  establishing  schools  and  colleges  at  the  West, 
and  of  distributing  there  and  making  familiar  and  at  home 
an  enlightening  Christian  literature.  That  work  was  car- 
ried on,  primarily,  with  reference  to  the  blessings  to  be 
conferred  upon  individual  souls,  or  upon  families  and 
small  communities  ; but  it  was  a work,  as  we  now  see  in 
looking  back,  which  was  essentially  national  in  its  aim, 
national  in  its  influence,  and  superbly  national  in  its 
results. 

Then  came  the  work  of  finally  vindicating  and  estab- 
lishing the  organic  political  unity  of  the  nation  for  all 
time  to  come : a work  which  was  accomplished  amid  the 
turmoil  and  crash,  amid  the  pain  and  the  ravage,  and  by 
the  final  magnificent  success,  of  the  immense  civil  war. 
We  felt  at  that  time,  vaguely  perhaps,  but  I think  often 
very  distinctly  and  very  emphatically,  that  that  was  not 
a war  for  the  American  people  only;  not  a war  for  the 
future  of  liberty  in  this  country  only ; —it  was  a war  for 
the  World.  The  destinies  of  mankind  were  infolded  in 
the  victorious  prosecution  of  it  to  the  ultimate  triumphant 


lO 


success,  in  which  the  nation  should  be  new-born.  So  it 
was  carried  on  until  that  success  was  reached ; and  the 
nation,  which  had  achieved  its  early  independence,  which 
had  furnished  itself  with  its  organic  frame  of  government, 
which  had  interpreted  its  constitution,  and  enacted  laws 
according  *to  it ; which  had  assimilated,  as  far  as  they 
could  be  then  reached,  the  scattered  populations  dis- 
tributed over  the  northern  parts  of  the  continent,  came 
at  last,  bleeding  but  victorious,  through  the  struggle ; 
having  shown  its  unity  impregnable  and  infrangible,  not 
only  as  against  any  power  without,  but  as  against  the 
mightiest,  the  most  defiant  and  energetic  rebellion  which 
ever  could  have  arisen  within.  Our  work  has  so  far, 
in  these  elements,  been  accomplished. 

Now,  there  remain  two  things  to  be  done,  in  order 
that  .we,  as  one  of  the  nations  over  whom  God  is  Gover- 
nor, may  set  forward  His  kingdom  and  glory  in  the  earth. 
One  is  the  amalgamation  with  our  own  people,  under 
American  training  and  in  the  experience  of  American  lib- 
erty and  privilege,  of  those  millions  of  immigrants  from 
foreign  lands  who  are  being  incessantly  poured  upon  our 
shores  ; representing  forms  of  religion  with  which  we  are 
unfamiliar ; representing  forms  of  unbelief,  fierce,  reso- 
lute, with  which  we  have  been  unacquainted  in  our  own 
land ; representing  the  fiercest  socialistic  ambitions  and 
purposes,  of  which  the  American  people,  except  as  thus 
flooded  with  them  from  abroad,  would  have  known  com- 
paratively nothing ; representing  anarchical  tendencies, 
and  representing  them  with  the  fury  of  passion  which  has 


been  wrought  into  these  immigrants,  and  developed 
among  them,  by  the  oppressions  of  foreign  lands  ; hating 
the  government  because  it  is  a government,  as  they  have 
been  trained  to  hate  governments  abroad  ; and  apparently 
insoluble,  not  so  to  be  brought  into  moral  flux  as  to 
mingle  intimately  and  inseparably  with  the  American 
people. 

This  is  one  work.  It  is  a work  to  be  done  by  Home 
Missions,  done  by  Sunday-schools,  done  by  American 
public  schools ; done  by  Christian  literature,  and  by  per- 
sonal Christian  influence : to  be  done  patiently  and 

widely,  and,  at  last,  we  may  be  certain,  effectively.  But 
it  is  to  be  a slow,  gradual  and  difficult  work,  to  take  the 
Bohemian,  the  Slav  and  the  Hungarian,  with  the  untaught 
Finn  or  Norseman,  and  bring  them  into  essential  moral 
and  spiritual  harmony  with  the  American  people.  That 
is  a work,  to  which,  in  its  time,  our  thought  will  be  em- 
phatically turned,  and  for  which  our  gifts  and  labors  will 
be  solicited. 

But  also  there  is  another — it  is  the  one  which  comes 
before  us  this  mornincj — and  this  is  the  work  amongf  what 
are  known  as  the  poor  whites  and  the  colored  population 
at  the  South.  The  termination  of  the  civil  war  left  these 
vast  masses  of  people,  whom  Northern  influence  never 
before  had  been  able  to  reach,  in  the  condition  to  which 
they  naturally  had  come  in  the  absence  of  an  enlightening 
and  a purifying  moral  power;  in  a condition  in  which  they 
became  a threat  to  the  whole  American  national  life  ; a 
condition  in  which,  however,  they  are  now,  and  will  be 


evermore  henceforth,  perfectly  accessible  to  the  influences 
with  which  we  are  familiar  among  ourselves,  and  by 
which  the  prosperity  and  power,  the  harmony  and  the 
glory  of  the  nation,  have  thus  far  been  secured  and  ad- 
vanced. 

Let  us  leave  sight,  for  the  time,  of  the  population  com- 
monly known  as  the  “ poor  white”  population,  remember- 
ing only  that  they  are  in  imminent,  constant  and  infinite 
need  of  precisely  such  instruction  as  has  long  been  fami- 
liar in  New  England  and  New  York,  in  the  Middle  States 
and  at  the  West;  remembering  that  they  have  been 
trained  into  habits  of  servility  of  mind,  looking  upon  the 
stately  mansion  of  the  planter,  out  of  their  small  and  poor 
cabins,  very  much  as  the  hind  in  the  British  forest  might 
have  looked  upon  the  plumed  and  decorated  knight  in  the 
day  of  Ivanhoe.  They  are  to  be  lifted  into  self-respect, 
into  the  intelligent  exercise  of  political  power,  and  into 
the  expansion  of  mind  as  well  as  the  enlargement  of 
knowledge  and  the  uplift  of  spirit,  which  will  come  with 
the  illuminating  and  exalting  truths  of  the  Gospel.  But 
let  us  now  think  simply  of  the  colored  population  collected 
at  the  South — a population  numbering  probably  eight 
millions,  with  1,600,000  children  of  the  proper  school-age  ; 
a population  rapidly  increasing — more  numerous  already 
than  the  other,  and  extending  its  numbers,  and  widening 
more  or  less  in  its  distribution  over  the  area  of  the  con- 
tinent, with  every  year  ; a population  which  is  thus  be- 
coming more  and  more  a formidable,  and  which  may  be 
a terrible,  factor  in  the  civilization  of  this  country. 


What  are  their  general  characteristic  tendencies  and 
traits?  Taking  them  at  large — remembering,  of  course, 
that  there  are  many  signal  exceptions,  of  those  who  have 
been  taught,  and  who  are  able  to  teach  others ; of  those 
who  have  manliness  and  modesty,  magnanimity  and 
heroism,  who  have  noble  power,  and  who  use  it  nobly  for 
the  welfare  of  their  kin  and  kind,  and  for  the  promotion 
of  the  public  welfare — remembering  this,  but  taking  them 
in  the  broadest  view,  without  prejudice  and  without  par- 
tiality, what  are  the  characteristics  of  the  Southern  colored 
population  ? A widespread  ignorance  must  be  conceded, 
of  what  is  familiarly  known,  believed  and  taught  among 
us  as  the  Gospel  of  Christ;  an  unfamiliarity  with  the 
written  word ; an  unfamiliarity  with  the  great  facts,  and 
with  the  rules  and  precepts  of  duty  which  are  founded 
upon  those  facts,  and  with  the  transcendent  and  illustrious 
truths  which  are  also  based  upon  their  solid  and  mighty 
foundations ; a want  of  familiarity  which  is  not  their  sin 
at  all,  but  their  baneful  misfortune.  Books  having  been 
formerly  prohibited,  reading  forbidden,  they  have  never 
had  the  opportunity  to  learn,  in  the  vast  majority,  what 
the  Gospel  is  from  its  own  pages,  or  from  the  cultured 
and  enlightening  instruction  of  others.  So,  not  infrequent- 
ly, appears  among  them  an  interpretation  of  the  Gospel  in 
which  the  most  fantastic  fancies  suddenly  emerge — fancies 
that  seem  not  unfrequently  to  have  been  born  of  the 
old  heathenism  still  hereditary  in  the  blood.  I could 
give  examples  of  this,  if  the  time  and  place  permitted, 
which  have  been  given  to  me  by  those  who  have  worked 


H 


among  these  people  at  the  South,  which  would  be  start- 
ling ; the  fantastic  interpretations  of  the  sacred  truth,  so  far 
as  they  have  become  partially  acquainted  with  it,  seeming 
to  show  the  shadow,  at  any  rate,  cast  upon  them  still  from 
the  ancient  and  gross  paganism  out  of  which  they  or 
their  immediate  ancestors,  comparatively  lately,  have 
emerged. 

Then,  too,  the  various  vices  which  are  naturally  engen- 
dered in  men  by  the  endurance  of  oppression,  under 
slavery,  appear  in  large  classes  of  this  population ; a ser- 
vility of  spirit,  often  reacting,  perhaps,  into  insolent  self- 
assertion  in  their  new  conditions ; falsehood,  more  com- 
mon than,  perhaps,  among  any  people  not  disciplined  to 
it  in  the  like  terrible  manner;  thievishness,  to  which  they 
were  trained  while  receiving  no  reward  of  their  labor,  na 
regular  and  remunerating  wages  for  what  they  accom- 
plished, when  they  were  taught,  therefore,  by  their  own 
instincts  as  they  felt,  and  by  the  habit  of  those  around 
them,  to  steal  whenever  they  had  the  opportunity.  All 
these  present  themselves,  with  the  indulgence  of  the 
animal  passions  to  a degree  quite  unsurpassed,  we  may 
say,  at  any  rate  among  any  of  the  modern  peoples  of  the 
world.  And  then  an  utter  divorce  not  unfrequently  ap- 
pears, and  this  is  the  most  fearful  and  almost  fatal  thing 
of  all,  between  religion  and  morality  among  them  ; so  that 
the  same  man  may  be  a fervent  exhorter  in  the  pulpit, 
and  an  adulterer  or  even  a murderer  outside  of  it — an  in- 
stance of  which  was  brought  to  my  attention  through  a 
friend  at  the  South  very  lately,  where  a man  had  been  a 


15 


fervent  preacher,  admired  for  his  eloquence,  and  had 
turned  out  afterward  to  have  been  at  the  same  time  a 
brutal  murderer,  and  was  ere  long  convicted  of  the  hor- 
rible crime.  Nevertheless  he  had  appeared  to  others, 
perhaps  to  himself,  to  be  sincere  in  his  fervent  exhorta- 
tions. This  whole  strange  conception  of  things  was 
summed  up  in  the  word  of  one  man,  preaching  to  a colored 
congregation,  himself  a colored  man  ; “ I have  to  confess, 
my  dear  Brethren,  that  I have  broken  every  command- 
ment of  God,  but  I bless  the  Lord  that  I have  never  yet 
lost  my  Religion  !”  There  is  an  absolute  contradiction, 
an  absolute  antithesis  in  their  mind  between  religion, 
on  the  one  hand,  and  morality  on  the  other.  Morality  is 
a matter  of  human  law.  Morality  is  a matter  for  the 
judges  to  investigate,  and  according  to  artificial  human 
rules  to  blame  for  or  to  reward  for.  But  religion  is  with 
them  a matter  of  excitement  of  the  senses,  of  nervous  rap- 
tures, of  fancied  visions,  of  voices  in  the  air,  of  convulsive 
paroxysmal  agitations  of  spirit.  And  so  the  religion 
which  is  taught  and  sought  might  also  be  said  to  make 
men  worse,  until  they  shall  have  been  brought  to  feel  and 
to  see  that  the  whole  moral  life  is  to  be  illumined  and 
governed  by  the  principles  and  the  mandates  of  the  Gos- 
pel of  Christ. 

Then  you  are  to  observe  in  them,  widely,  a moral  child- 
ishness, perfectly  natural.  Under  oppression  so  long  as 
they  have  been,  accustomed  to  look  up  with  reverence, 
with  fear,  to  the  classes  above  them,  they  have  come  to 
be  largely  in  this  condition  of  moral  childishness ; with  no 


ingrained,  enduring  and  governing  sense  of  the  moral 
dignity  of  manhood  or  of  womanhood,  as  developed  under 
the  government  of  God,  and  destined  to  immortal  issues 
after  and  out  of  this  human  life. 

These  are  the  characteristics,  as  I say,  on  the  large 
general  scale,  with  many  distinguished  and  noble  individ- 
ual exceptions,  with  even  scattered  communities  to  be  ex- 
cepted, where  the  power  of  the  Gospel  has  now  been  seen 
and  felt  for  years,  and  is  coming  to  its  prophetic  fruitage. 
But  take  the  distributed  aggregate  mass,  which  has  not 
yet  been  reached  by  the  power  of  the  Gospel  as  that  lies 
before  us,  as  it  makes  its  incessant  Divine  appeal  to  us, 
and  I have  not  at  all  overstated  the  facts.  I have  not 
colored  too  deeply  one  line  on  the  picture.  It  is  as  I have 
said ; and  those  who  return  to  us  from  the  South  bear 
witness  to  it,  all  the  time. 

Now,  here  is  already,  and  is  to  be,  for  our  own  safety, 
an  immense  work  to  be  done.-  If  this  is  not  to  be  a great 
black  ulcer,  eating  into  the  vitals  of  the  American  life,  we 
have  got  to  purify  and  remove  it,  not  by  excision  of  sur- 
gery, but  by  sure  if  slow  processes  of  healing.  The  weak 
in  the  long  run  govern  the  strong.  Permanent  popular 
liberties  have  their  only  sure  foundation  in  sound  moral 
conditions  practically  universal.  We  must  secure  these 
among  those  to  whom  we  have  given  the  ballot,  and  who 
are  to  be  henceforth  citizens  with  ourselves.  Otherwise, 
we  are  building  our  splendid  political  house  on  the  edges 
of  the  pestilential  swamp  from  which  fatal  miasmatic 
odors  are  rising  all  the  time.  Yes,  we  are  building  our 


17 

house  on  piles  driven  into  the  thick  ooze  and  mud  of  the 
pestilential  swamp  itself.  We  are  building  our  cities, 
which  we  think  are  so  splendid,  and  which  are  so  in  fact, 
as  men  built  Herculaneum  and  Pompeii,  on  a shore  which 
ever  and  anon  trembled  with  earthquake,  over  which  was 
flung  the  black  flag  of  \’esuvius,  and  down  upon  which 
rolled,  in  time,  the  lava  floods  that  burned  and  buried 
them. 

We  have  got  to  face  this  duty,  my  Brethren.  We  have 
got  to  meet  this  immense  problem,,  which  is  not  far  off, 
but  right  at  hand ; which  is  not  a problem  of  theory,  or 
of  distant  history,  but  of  practice  and  fact ; and  which 
concerns  not  the  well-being  alone,  but  the  v^ery  life  of  the 
nation.  Noble  men  and  women  at  the  South  are  engaged 
in  it  already,  with  all  their  hearts  ; and  we  must  help, 
mightily  ! It  would  be  the  craziest  folly  of  the  age  for  us 
to  be  indifferent  to  it. 

Some  men  may  say,  perhaps,  “ But  this  is  a work  that 
cannot  be  done.  It  is  too  radical  and  vast  to  be  hope- 
fully attempted.”  Nonsense  ! There  is  no  work  for  the 
kingdom  of  God,  and  the  glory  of  His  name,  which  cannot 
be  done  ! With  the  Gospel  in  our  hand,  we  can  do  every- 
thing. Paul  said,  centuries  ago,  that  without  God  he 
could  do  nothing,  but  “I  can  do  all  things  through  Christ 
which  strengtheneth  me  !”  He  was  a modest  man,  and 
would  never  have  claimed  that  derived  omnipotence  unless 
he  had  known  that  he  possessed  it.  And  the  children  of 
God  in  the  world  can  still  do  everything,  which  is  neces- 
sary for  His  kingdom  and  glory,  with  the  power  of  the 


i8 


Gospel  held  and  wielded,  patiently,  persistently  and  he- 
roically by  them.  This  is  necessary  for  our  own  security  ; 
and  it  is  necessary  for  the  work  of  God  everywhere  else 
in  the  world  that  this  work  be  done  among  ourselves. 
We  can  have  no  power,  comparatively,  in  India  or  Tur- 
key, if  the  native  converts  there,  coming  to  the  knowledge 
of  the  facts  existing  in  this  country,  say  to  our  mission- 
aries, “Why  don’t  you  evangelize  the  colored  people  at 
home  ? Why  don’t  you  teach  them  to  associate  the  Ser- 
mon on  the  Mount  with  their  daily  life  ? Why  don’t  you 
bring  the  great  white  Throne  of  Judgment  before  their 
minds,  that  they  may  live  honestly  and  faithfully  in  the 
world  ?”  We  must  do  this  for  our  own  fame  and  moral 
power  in  other  lands,  as  well  as  for  our  safety  at  home. 

And  there  is  another  most  important  relation  of  this 
work  which  we  do  not  always  distinctly  apprehend. 
What  is  the  meaning  of  the  fact  that  since  our  civil  war 
Africa  has  been  opened  to  the  knowledge  and  commerce 
of  the  world,  suddenly,  widely,  as  never  before  ? An  un- 
known continent  for  so  many  centuries  of  historic  years, 
a continent  known  only  through  the  small  settlements 
along  the  north  and  south,  and  by  the  slave-trade  along  the 
coasts  on  the  east  and  west,  has  been  now  pierced  at  every 
point,  on  every  line,  with  its  geography  as  familiar  to  us, 
if  we  chose  to  have  it  so,  certainly  as  the  geography  of 
India  ; far  more  so  than  the  geography  of  Australia,  which 
has  never  yet  been  fully  explored.  Here  is  that  enor- 
mous continent,  with  its  Free  State  of  many  millions  al- 
ready, with  its  advancing  population  at  different  points  in 


19 


the  south  and  in  the  west,  in  the  east,  even,  and  also  in 
the  north,  now  accessible  to  commerce,  accessible  to 
Christianity,  and  with  many  of  its  Christian  converts 
showing  an  endurance  and  a heroism  which  put  anything 
in  our  experience  to  utter  shame : men  coming  to  confess 
Christ  in  the  face  of  the  war  club,  in  the  face  of  the  rifle 
bullet,  in  the  face  of  the  flame  ; men  and  women  converted 
to  Christ  in  the  midst  of  the  most  tremendous  persecu- 
tions ; in  Madagascar,  Christian  congregations  build- 
ing memorial  chapels  on  the  very  sites  where  forty  years 
ago  men  were  flung  over  precipices,  or  were  buried 
alive,  or  in  other  ways  had  their  life  beaten  out,  because 
of  their  fealty  to  the  unseen  God  ! 

Here  is  this  great  continent  open  before  us,  as  I have 
said,  really  already  in  every  part,  and  explored  largely  by 
American  enterprise  and  American  pluck.  What  is  the 
meaning  of  it,  coming  at  this  time?  It  meansthat  if  we 
will  Christianize  the  colored  people  on  our  own  shores 
we  shall  have  thousands  and  tens  of  thousands  of  intel- 
ligent missionaries  to  send  soon  to  Africa ; where  the 
climate,  injurious  to  the  white  man,  is  salubrious  to  the 
black ; where  the  fertile  soil,  the  vast  run  of  the  rivers, 
and  the  vast  snow-mountains,  give  to  large  spaces  of  the 
continent  all  the  natural  advantages  which  either  America 
or  Europe  possesses.  We  may,  if  we  will  do  our  work  at 
home  among  the  colored  people  here,  send,  not  hundreds, 
but  thousands  and  tens  of  thousands  of  missionaries  into 
that  great  continent — the  very  men  to  work  there,  the 
very  men  to  reach  most  powerfully  those  kindred  tribes 


20 


who  are  still  in  a state  of  pagan  barbarism.  God  has 
fitted  the  two  events  together/as  He  sometimes  has  done 
before  in  history — never  more  signally  than  in  this  case. 
All  the  colored  population  released  from  bondage  here  ! 
All  Africa  opened  to  them,  on  the  other  side  of  the  sea  1 
Here  is  the  stamp,  if  we  will  have  it,  and  there  is  the 
yielding  wax,  that  the  seal  of  the  Christ,  with  cross  and 
crown,  may  there  be  set ! 

Now  then,  as  I have  said,  there  is  no  work  too  great, 
if  we  will  undertake'  it  in  the  love  and  faith  and  fear  of 
God,  and  with  the  instrument  of  His  Gospel  in  our  hands 
wherewith  to  work.  There  has  been  a good  beginning 
made  already.  This  society,  to  which  we  are  to  contrib- 
ute to-day,  the  American  Missionary  Association,  has 
four  established  colleges,  three  of  which  are  entirely  sup- 
ported by  itself,  have  been  founded  by  it  and  are  carried 
on  by  it;  and  the  fourth  very  largely  so.  It  has  multi- 
tudes of  high  schools,  normal  schools  and  primary  schools. 
One  man  in  Connecticut,  you  remember,  gave  to  it  a 
million  of  dollars  a year  or  two  ago,  only  the  income  of 
which,  however,  can  be  used.  This  income  is  to  be  de- 
voted to  the  education  of  such  colored  people  as  give 
indications  of  efficiency  and  usefulness  in  after  life.  The 
man  who  gave  it  saw  the  greatness  of  the  work  and  of  the 
need,  having  himself  lived  long  at  the  South  and  there 
acquired  his  property.  He  has  wisely  designed  his  fund  to 
be  used  in  the  ways  most  effective  for  the  advancement 
of  the  colored  population  in  industry,  temperance,  and 
civilization,  in  the  knowledge  of  the  Bible,  and  in  that 


love  of  God  which  he  justly  recognizes  as  the  most  vital 
thing  of  all.  He  believes,  as  I believe,  first  of  all,  my  dear 
Friends,  in  the  education  of  men  in  the  Gospel  of  Christ, 
and  of  women  as  well,  who  may  become  religious  teachers 
of  the  colored  people ; who  may  bring  the  power  and 
light  and  glory  of  the  Gospel  into  contact  with  those 
uninstructed  minds,  receptive  and  sensitive  but  unin- 
structed, in  schools  and  colleges.  First  of  all,  we  want 
men  trained,  and  women,  too,  in  the  knowledge  of  the 
truth  as  it  is  in  Christ,  and  then  to  have  them  teaching 
others.  And  that  is  precisely  the  line  along  which  the 
society  to  which  we  are  to  contribute  to-day,  as  we  have 
done  gladly  and  largely  heretofore,  is  carrying  its  in- 
cessant operation. 

Now  I affirm  absolutely  that  if  there  ever  was  a work 
of  God  on  earth,  this  is  his  work!  If  there  was  ever 
anything  to  which  the  American  Christian  people  were 
called,  they  are  called  to  this.  If  there  was  ever  a great 
opportunity  before  the  Christian  church,  here  it  is;  not 
to  reach  those  people  merely  for  their  own  immediate 
welfare ; not  to  save  our  own  national  life  merely ; but  to 
Christianize  that  immense  continent  which  lies  opposite 
to  us  on  the  map,  which  we  have  wronged  so  long  with 
the  slave-trade  and  with  rum,  and  to  which  now  we  can, 
if  we  will,  send  multitudes  of  messengers  to  testify  of  the 
glory  of  the  grace  of  God. 

Ah,  my  Friends,  don’t  say  “It  is  too  great  a work.” 
It  is  going  to  be  done ! You  and  I may  do  or  may  not 
do  our  part  in  it.  It  is  going  to  be  done!  The  North 


and  the  South,  God  hath  created  them;  Tabor  and  Her- 
mon  shall  rejoice  in  His  name!  God  did  not  raise  up 
this  nation  for  nothing.  He  did  not  plant  the  Holland- 
ers here,  and  the  Swedes  in  Jersey,  and  the  Friends  in 
Pennsylvania,  and  the  Pilgrims  on  the  shores  of  New 
England,  for  nothing.  He  had  a plan  about  it  from  the 
beginning.  He  did  not  inspire  the  Revolution  for  noth- 
ing, or  guide  in  the  councils  that  framed  the  Constitution, 
or  stir  the  hearts  of  His  children  to  send  the  Gospel 
westward  and  westward,  and  still  westward,  with  the  ad- 
vancing pioneer  and  the  far  mining-camp,  till  the  minister 
and  the  teacher  looked  out  together  on  the  waves  of  the 
Pacific.  It  was  not  for  nothing  that  He  carried  us  through 
the  tremendous  civil  war,  punishing  North  and  punish- 
ing South,  but  bringing,  at  last,  the  glorious  victory  to 
the  national  cause.  It  is  not  for  nothing  that  He  has 
given  us  this  work  to  do.  It  is  to  be  accomplished:  to 
the  glory  of  His  name,  for  the  welfare  of  man,  and  for 
the  honor  of  our  crucified,  crowned  and  reigning  King. 
Let  us  do  generously  our  part  in  it  to-day! 


